endgame
by ConcreteAngelRoxHerHalo
Summary: she wonders if it's the end of yesterday. "lord i hope so." is all he says. apocalyptic AU
1. Chapter 1

It is an ordinary autumn day when the world seems to end. Éponine is walking home from school, the wallet she just stole from a passerby in her hand. His name is apparently Joseph Lesgle, and he happened to have three hundred dollars in cash that now belongs to an Éponine Jondrette.

She smiles to herself. Perhaps she and Azelma can grab a pastry from that bakery down the street that her little sister is always gawking at whenever they pass by. And, after that, they will have plenty of cash to spare. Enough to save them a few beatings from their desperate father.

She thinks something seems wrong when her neighbor is carrying an overstuffed suitcase and his stray kitten, all whilst trying to close the door to his apartment (if one can call the one-roomed, terrible spaces that). He looks over to her and smiles in greeting, finally managing to shove the door closed with his shoulder.

"Hello, Mr. Marius, hello Napoleon!" She addresses both the man and the cat, the shyest of smiles on her face.

"'Ponine!" He seems almost pleased to see her, and it makes her heart jump. Sure, he is a good ten years her senior, and sure he is engaged to a woman who looks like a supermodel, but he is a very attractive man with a logical mind and a kind demeanor. With the kind of men she is used to, it is hard to _not_ fall in love with Marius.

"Are you going on a trip?" She asks, and a dark shadow crosses over his face. Now she _knows_ something is wrong.

"How much money do you have on you, 'Ponine?" He asks her. She holds up the wallet so he can see the six fifties. He smiles proudly and ruffles her hair. She frowns slightly at the fraternal gesture. Then he grabs her shoulders and bends to be at the petit girl's level. He looks at her closely, his kind eyes far too serious for her liking. "If I tell you to do something, will you promise to do it without question?"

"Depends what. You're scaring me, sir. Will you please tell me what's going on?"

He looks around as if scared that someone might be listening in on them. He is always like this, for Marius works for the government. She takes pride in the fact that if something terrible ever happens, she will be the second to know after his fiancee.

"This needs to be quick," He says, more to himself than to her. "Éponine, I need you to take your family and leave the city as soon as you can. Don't bother packing anything, just grab a taxi and go as far away as that three hundred dollars will take you."

She knows better than to ask why. A sense of dread pools in her stomach as she nods. He smiles tiredly and kisses her forehead before lugging his baggage down the stairs of the cheap apartment complex. Éponine watches as he loads his bag in the back of a waiting car before ducking into the back seat.

As soon as the car is out of sight, Éponine registers the urgency in Marius's tone and begins to run. She reaches her family's squalid apartment and doesn't bother unlocking the door. She uses her bony shoulder to shove the secret spot that she knows will somehow render the lock useless. Sure enough, the door collapses from beneath her and she stumbles into the one room hell-hole.

Her little sister, Azelma, is lying on their shared bed and listening to the iPod shuffle that Éponine stole her for Christmas. The pretty red-head pulls out one earbud and cocks an eyebrow at Éponine's panicked face.

"We need to leave. Now." She says in way of explanation. Questions rise on Azelma's lips, but Éponine simply grabs the younger girl's upper arm and practically drags her out the building.

"But, 'Ponine! I need to get my homework and my charger-"

"Shut up, Azelma!" Éponine feels close to tears. The frenzy of dread is filling her like a cup of boiling tea on a cold day and it seems to overtake all of her senses. The two of them find the dilapidated playground that the residents of the complex share, called 'The Elephant' for the strange shape of the old tower and slide.

"Gavroche! You'd best get down here quick, 'Ponine's in a bad mood!" Azelma says, cupping her hands together to get the attention of their little brother. Sure enough, a blond head appears from the lip of the slide, and he shimmies his way to the ground.

"What's got 'er riled up?" He asks, and Azelma merely shrugs. Éponine glares at her siblings, a touch annoyed that they don't seem to feel the panic that she does.

"We need to get out of town, now. Where are the little ones?" She says to Gavroche, who frowns.

"I dunno, okay? I Gotta find them. We were playing hide-n-go-seek. You seen 'nuff in a hurry that if I don't find them, they'll be left behind. " Gavroche says of their younger brothers. Éponine makes a shoo-ing motion with her hand and watches as he looks around the playground, calling their names.

Then the tiny figure of Jack comes toddling into view, his two-year-old face crumpled in terror. Just behind him is Bernard, but it… Isn't Bernard. His eyes aren't their usual coffee color. Instead, they are glossy and milky. There is a large, bruised and bloody bite mark that is visible through a tear in his clothes. His teeth gnash together as he races after the helpless toddler.

Azelma shrieks, running towards the gate of the playground. Gavroche hears this and looks quickly, seeing the strange scene before him.

"Bernard," He scolds as he quickly descends down the side of the tower. "Now's not the time to play tag-" He grabs the eight-year-old as he passes, and Bernard quickly snaps his attention to Gavroche.

"Gav!" Éponine screams, but it's too late. Their little brother sinks his teeth into their other brother's forearm. Jack finally makes it to the girls and wraps his arms around Éponine's leg. She scoops up the little boy as she watches in horror.

Gavroche crumples to the ground and within twelve seconds, he begins to twitch. He leaps to his feet, a terrible sight. Foam drips out of the corner of his mouth and down his chin as his milky eyes scope the playground.

Éponine is no longer frozen at that moment. She goes into action, grabbing Azelma and holding Jack tightly to her chest.

"Azelma, come on. _Azelma_." She yells as monster-Gavroche and Bernard lunge for them. Azelma manages to understand what Éponine is saying and her feet move under her until the sisters are racing away from the pathetic place that has been their home for so long. They are more than happy to leave their useless parents behind, but even then Azelma spares a glance back to the window. She has always been the more loyal of the two girls.

They come to a screeching halt when they see the street. Traffic has come to a complete standstill, but there is still motion as people run desperately down the street. In hot pursuit are more of those monsters. _Zombies_. Éponine's dazed brain puts a name to those beings.

Nearby, a zombie reaches through a taxi's window and pulls out the driver, sinking its teeth into the old man's neck. The passengers scream, which appears to be the wrong choice, for three passing zombies hear and invade the car through the open window.

Éponine gags as she sees blood splatter the glass. This time it is Azelma who is down to earth, and the younger girl pulls her sister away from the hoard. Finally they come to a large taxi that looks more like a station wagon than a cab. The driver is nowhere to be seen, but a dark-haired young man is motioning a group of college-age students into the vehicle. Éponine runs to him and grabs his arm.

"Please! Can my sister and I come with you? We have nowhere to go!" She begs, too desperate to consider the shameful fact that she actually resorts to pleading with a stranger not much older than she.

"That looks more like a boy to me, but sure," The man indicates Jack, who is huddled close to Éponine's chest. She looks around herself, but does not see Azelma.

"Where did she go?" She muses aloud. Seeing the man's confused expression, she hands Jack off. The kid immediately begins to cry, and the man's eyes widen before he quickly gives him to someone inside of the car. Éponine hears her brother's sobs subside.

She catches sight of Azelma in a dangerous tangle with what used to be their mother. She begins to run to her sister, but she knows she is too late. Her mother scratches Azelma's exposed midriff with her long nails. The teenage girl collapses to the ground and begins to shake. Éponine stumbles over her feet as she backs away, not even really registering the loss of more than half her family.

AzelmaZombie advances towards Éponine at a scarily slow pace. The sight is made more terrifying by the bruises and ripped clothing she attained in the fight. Éponine feels tears threaten when she sees the headphones for her sister's iPod flung around her shoulders. She backs away without much of a hope of getting to safety.

Éponine falls mere yards away from the cab and Azelma is nearly on her when a baseball bat comes out of nowhere and catches her sister in the temple. Standing above her, his chest heaving, is her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Montparnasse. He has a pleased smile in place of his usual scowl, and his green eyes glow with malicious glee. His pale, usually sickly skin gleams in the Georgia sun and his short hair is soaked through with sweat. He is truly magnificent, and she feels a slight need to stay with him. He helps her up and shoves her away immediately after.

"Go, 'Ponine." He says, as gently as one can say something in the midst of chaos. She manages a nod and pulls herself into the cab, shaking.

As soon as the door closes behind her, the driver shoves his foot so hard on the pedal that the car lurches forward. The strength with which he does so causes Éponine to topple onto the lap of one of the young men in the backseat. He stiffens under her, which she takes to be a bad sign.

"Er…. Sorry?" She says, trying to pick herself off him, but it proves to be a difficult task with the driver being as reckless as he is.

The man finally realizes that he is going to have to get used to this position, for his muscles relax under Éponine's hand. He says nothing, and she doesn't even see his face. She is looking out the back window at the streets of Atlanta as they become a scene from a Zombie movie. Once they take the necessary twists and turns to get to the outskirts, the driver starts to get into a driving mode that is less Mario-kart-esque.

That being, Éponine peels herself off her human seat and plops herself on the floor of the car. It is only then that she gets a good look at who she had been sitting on. The first thing that catches her eye is the gray seatbelt tight around his chest. He is the only one who took that safety measure. Then it is simply _that chest_ that she notices. Even under the crisp button-up, it is obvious that he is well-built. She makes her eyes travel up from his body, and she feels her breath catch in her throat.

He is, without a doubt, the most handsome man she has ever seen. He has a head of tousled golden curls that soften his strong bone structure, and a pair of cupid's bow lips that don't quite fit with the ruggedness of the rest of his face. He is a pleasant pale shade (Éponine has never liked the guys who have those hideous farmer's tans in an attempt to 'get in touch with their southern roots'. You live in the city; you're not a fucking southerner) that suggests that he is from out of town, and his blue eyes pierce her.

But that was the thing. _He _is looking at _her_. Guys like him just don't acknowledge white trash like her. But _he_ does.

"Ma'am?" Comes a tinkling breathy voice. She turns to see a pretty young boy holding a sleeping Jack. She reaches out her hands and takes her baby brother from the stranger's arms, clutching him tightly to her. The same one comes down from his seat and sits opposite of her, smiling brightly. He is a warm golden hue that is darker than his pale blond hair. He wears a horrendous purple wife beater and yellow skinny jeans, but he seems nice enough.

"What's your name?" She asks him. He holds out his hand politely. She takes it.

"I'm Jehan. How about you?" As he speaks, he pushes a lock of hair behind his startlingly elf-like ear.

"Jehan? That's really french." She points out. He laughs lightly, nodding his head. "I'm called Éponine. French names for the win, huh?" She offers, giving him one of her bright smiles, usually reserved for her handsome neighbor.

"Like in _Éponine et Sabinus_!" The man in the driver's seat exclaims. All the passengers turn to look at him slowly. He glares back through the mirror. "It's an opera, you uncultured swine."

"Yes, but you're a genius and a stud, Courf''." A man says in between swigs from his flask. The same man looks down at Erin sitting on the floor and winks sloppily. He mouths his name, 'Grantaire'. She nods slowly in his direction. He reminds her too much of her father.

The driver barks out a laugh in response."True."

"What's your son's name?" Jehan asks her. Éponine feigns offense and hugs Jack closer to her.

"He's _not_ my son." She says, a little harsher than she means for it to sound. She feels awful when she sees him flinch from the tone in her words. She softens a little and smiles slightly. "He's my little brother."

"Oh, I'm sorry for assuming-" Jehan apologizes, but she quickly cuts him off.

"It's fine. People like me; it's expected for us to ruin our lives. It's not a _mean _stereotype, it's a true one." She says honestly, which draws a groan from the one with a flask.

"Oh God, why did you say that? Enjolras's going to -"

"Nobody should be looked down upon anywhere!" The handsome man she fell on top of declares. "This is the type of inequality we should be protesting in the w-"

"Boo!" His friends cry, throwing various things at him. He raises his arms in self defense, a coke can, an iPod, and a pen directly hitting him while everything else falls into the laps of those on either side of him. Éponine laughs with the rest of them. She knows that this is something akin the apocalypse, yet she can't help but feel like _her_ world is starting.

Who would have thought that she would find finally find happiness in this situation?

* * *

**This is an extension of a one-shot I posted once... So please review! (it's no longer up on fanfiction, I took it down so there wouldn't be any spoilers for this story)**

**I could always use a beta!**

**REVIEW!**


	2. Chapter 2

Once they get onto the highway, it takes less than five minutes for Enjolras, the handsome blond man, to force Courfeyrac, the driver, to give up his current place. The two switch and pretty soon Éponine finds herself entranced with Courfeyrac's quirks as the two of them chat amiably in the back.

It's quite peculiar; no one she's ever really gotten to know has been this smart. Hell, these boys (for really, none of them could be over twenty-three) might not even really be smart, but in comparison to those she's known in her life, they seen like geniuses.

From what she's gathered, the lot of them met at their Freshman orientation when they were (respectively) shunned by the college girls, professors, and fraternities. Enjolras brought up the desire to make a change in not only the school, but the world, and from then on the eight of them became joined at the hip.

There is Courfeyrac, the renowned flirt who apparently has random obsessions for the weirdest things ("Last year, all he listened to was yodeling." Grantaire says with disgust. Courfeyrac hits him over the head.

"Shit like that takes talent, okay?").

There is Combeferre, the smart boy with glasses who sits up front next to Enjolras ("The two of them are basically married," Courfeyrac jokes).

There is Joly, the medical student who is overly paranoid to boot ("What if this virus is airborne? Oh God, what if I-"

"SHUT UP JOLY").

There is Feuilly, the artist who's worked his way through scholarships just to finally drop out after sophomore year to run a pottery shop. ("The bastard picks up more girls than the rest of us," Says Grantaire jokingly.

"What can I say? The ladies love a hard-working boy!" He winks).

There is Jehan, the poet of the group, and he is probably girlier than Éponine has ever been her entire life. ("Hey guys," He sighs, "Do you remember that one time I brought flowers to a meeting and for months the room smelled like roses?"

"Unfortunately." Huffs Enjolras.)

There is Bahorel, a sparse member of the group who just happened to be present when the world went to shit. He appears to be extremely uncomfortable, wedged in between Joly and the kidnapped taxi driver ("I'd rather be out fighting Zach." He says, cracking his knuckles. When everyone else looks at him oddly, he rolls his eyes. "We had Charlie in Vietnam, we can have Zach here."

"Dude you weren't even born when we were fighting in Vi-"

"Don't remind me").

And of course there is Grantaire, the resident drunk. He appears to not be good for much, but he's mild-mannered and dry-humored, which is a welcome change from her father ("If you think any of my fetishes are weird, if you recite Homer to Grantaire he'll have a hard-on before any ladies are even mentioned." Courfeyrac teases.

Bahorel rolls his eyes. "Still not weirder than some of yours."

"Wait, what are your fetishes?" Éponine asks, curious.

Jehan fills in, his brown eyes sparkling. "If you start to sing-"

"JEHAN."

"-any song from-"

"CAN WE NOT."

"-Wicked, you'll be up against the wall before you know what's happening."

"Do you speak from experience?" Enjolras snorts from the driver's seat. Jehan blushes)

And last but not least, oh certainly not least is Enjolras, the handsome leader of the bunch. He's stoic in every sense of the word. His appearance is that of unbreakable marble; he might as well be a statue in a museum. His demeanor is just as frigid as his appearance- pale and icy ("He is Apollo, doomed to spend a lifetime with us mere mortals!")

She feels, in a thirty minute's drive, that she knows most of them better than she knows herself. It's more than enough to keep her mind off the trifling matter that the undead have taken over until Enjolras stops the car with a murmured curse.

"What is it, Enjy?" Asks Courfeyrac.

"Don't call me that." Enjolras responds, icily. "There's no gas left in any of the station's we've passed- we're gonna have to get out in Savannah." He checks the meter on the car

"What do you mean- Oh." Joly says, staring out the window. "Well, I mean we can't stay inside the car. I have a condition so I can't stay in hot places, you know, and if we get out then we'll be walking and the south is far too hot for anyone who is human to even consider being outside for too long and-"

Joe is cut off by the taxi driver putting his hand over the other's mouth. When Joly stops squirming, the unnamed man removes his hand. Joly scowls in his direction. "Do you know how many germs are carried on the human hand?" But he leaves it at that, rubbing his lips and the skin around his mouth.

"Hey, when did you get here?" Enjolras frowns from the front seat. The guy rubs his shaved head and looks bashful.

"I was the taxi driver? You guys kinda took over…." He doesn't seem to be particularly angry about it, which is surprising to Éponine. With the few items she owns- er owned-, she would kill anyone who took something of hers.

"Sorry 'bout that." Kind Combeferre says, his glasses kind of askew on his nose. "So what's your name?"

"Joseph Lesgle, but you guys can call me Bossuet." He says kindly, looking around the car and observing all of them slowly. Enjolras, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Grantaire, Feuilly, Bahorel, Jehan, Joly, Éponine and a slumbering Jack. "And no need to be sorry, I just have really bad luck. You guys probably saved my life, otherwise I would be one of them…"

Éponine squints her eyes and observes Bossuet closely. Her eyes widening, her fingers flit to the wallet in her pocket. Could it….

"Just to think, I thought today was terrible when I lost my wallet! Don't think I'll have much use for that anymore." He laughs, and his cheeriness is almost contagious.

Going against everything she's taught herself, she places the wallet on his lap and looks away guiltily. "I don't have much use for it either."

He stares at her with his dark brown eyes wide and his mouth in a large 'O'. Uncomfortable, Éponine lies on the ground and feigns sleep, fitting comfortably at the feet of these boys with her little brother tucked against her.

The hum of the engine when Enjolras starts to drive again must lull her to sleep, for when she awakes, the car is no longer in motion and everyone is talking at the same time, causing her head to pound. The car air conditioning has obviously stopped working, for the warmness of the fall day seeps through the windows and burns her skin.

She sits up sleepily, supporting her arm against Courfeyrac's knees. Enjolras's "Hush" breaks through the babble and they all go quiet immediately. Jack has somehow detangled himself from her, and is now perched on Grantaire's lap, looking out the window with a strangely serious expression on his face.

Something is wrong. Éponine stands so that her shoulders are stooped against the roof of the car. What she sees turns her blood cold.

* * *

**Hey so if anyone sees any name oddities, tell me! This is posted on both fp and here with the names switched! **

**Thanks to the lovely Olo Eopia for reviewing and being one of my oldest fanfiction friends!**


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